NCT02359981

Brief Summary

MyBehavior is a mobile application with a suggestion engine that learns a user's physical activity and dietary behavior, and provides finely-tuned personalized suggestions. To our knowledge, MyBehavior is the first smartphone app to provide personalized health suggestions automatically, going beyond commonly used one-size-fits-all prescriptive approaches, or tailored interventions from health-care professionals. MyBehavior uses an online multi-armed bandit model to automatically generate context-sensitive and personalized activity/food suggestions by learning the user's actual behavior. The app continually adapts its suggestions by exploiting the most frequent healthy behaviors, while sometimes exploring non-frequent behaviors, in order to maximize the user's chance of reaching a health goal (e.g. weight loss).

Trial Health

87
On Track

Trial Health Score

Automated assessment based on enrollment pace, timeline, and geographic reach

Enrollment
17

participants targeted

Target at below P25 for not_applicable

Timeline
Completed

Started May 2013

Shorter than P25 for not_applicable

Geographic Reach
1 country

1 active site

Status
completed

Health score is calculated from publicly available data and should be used for screening purposes only.

Trial Relationships

Click on a node to explore related trials.

Study Timeline

Key milestones and dates

Study Start

First participant enrolled

May 1, 2013

Completed
1 month until next milestone

Primary Completion

Last participant's last visit for primary outcome

June 1, 2013

Completed
Same day until next milestone

Study Completion

Last participant's last visit for all outcomes

June 1, 2013

Completed
1.7 years until next milestone

First Submitted

Initial submission to the registry

February 2, 2015

Completed
8 days until next milestone

First Posted

Study publicly available on registry

February 10, 2015

Completed
Last Updated

February 11, 2015

Status Verified

February 1, 2015

Enrollment Period

1 month

First QC Date

February 2, 2015

Last Update Submit

February 10, 2015

Conditions

Keywords

Weight loss, Fitness

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

  • User intentions to follow automated suggestions and behavior change

    The primary outcome is to measure efficacy of MyBehavior suggestions. Efficacy will be measured in two dimensions (1) whether users intend to follow the automated suggestions from MyBehavior (2) effectiveness of automated suggestions in actual behavior change. User intentions towards following MyBehavior suggestions are measured using a 5 point likert scale. The investigators will ask users to rate whether they can follow the suggestions on an average day within a scale of 1-5 (1- I can't follow the suggestion, 5 - I can easily follow the suggestion). On the other hand, behavior change is measured from food (calories in per meal consumed) and activity (walking, running or exercise durations per day etc.) log collected using their smartphone. Regarding physical activity, how much physical activity users are performing will be compared across experiment conditions. Similarly, calorie consumption change in food will be used to compare dietary behavior change.

    3 weeks

Secondary Outcomes (1)

  • Usability improvements of automated suggestions

    3 weeks

Study Arms (2)

Generic suggestions

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

Control group participants received suggestions generated by the a nutritionist and exercise trainer. These suggestions didn't relate to user's life or their past behavior.

Behavioral: Generic suggestionsDevice: Smartphone

MyBehavior

EXPERIMENTAL

Experiment group participants received personalized suggestions from MyBehavior that relates their life and past behavior.

Behavioral: MyBehaviorDevice: Smartphone

Interventions

MyBehaviorBEHAVIORAL

The intervention automatically provides personalized suggestions based on users behavior and user context. Suggestions relates to users life and how often they have done them in the past. Since the suggestions relate to users' lives, they are easy to follow.

MyBehavior

A nutritionist and an exercise trainer jointly created 45 food and exercise suggestions based on guidelines posted by the NIH. These suggestions ask users to walk for 30 minutes or eat healthier foods. These suggestions however doesn't personalize to users daily behavior into account.

Generic suggestions

An Android Smartphone with operating system version higher than 2.2

Generic suggestionsMyBehavior

Eligibility Criteria

Age18 Years - 60 Years
Sexall
Healthy VolunteersYes
Age GroupsAdult (18-64)

You may qualify if:

  • In relatively healthy condition. Also, users must be interested in health and fitness.

You may not qualify if:

  • Individuals with physical disability and dietary problems are excluded.

Contact the study team to confirm eligibility.

Sponsors & Collaborators

Study Sites (1)

Cornell University

Ithaca, New York, 14850, United States

Location

Related Publications (1)

  • Rabbi M, Pfammatter A, Zhang M, Spring B, Choudhury T. Automated personalized feedback for physical activity and dietary behavior change with mobile phones: a randomized controlled trial on adults. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2015 May 14;3(2):e42. doi: 10.2196/mhealth.4160.

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Weight Loss

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Body Weight ChangesBody WeightSigns and SymptomsPathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms

Study Officials

  • Mashfiqui Rabbi, BS

    Cornell University

    PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

Study Type
interventional
Phase
not applicable
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Masking
SINGLE
Who Masked
PARTICIPANT
Purpose
PREVENTION
Intervention Model
PARALLEL
Sponsor Type
OTHER
Responsible Party
SPONSOR

Study Record Dates

First Submitted

February 2, 2015

First Posted

February 10, 2015

Study Start

May 1, 2013

Primary Completion

June 1, 2013

Study Completion

June 1, 2013

Last Updated

February 11, 2015

Record last verified: 2015-02

Locations